LiDAR is an acronym for Light Detection and Ranging. As it pertains to the geospatial industry, LiDAR generally refers to an airborne, near infra-red laser that scans the surface of the earth to produce highly accurate horizontal and vertical data points that define the shape of the earth and elevations of above ground features.
The volume of data being collected from LiDAR sensors is growing at a very fast rate. With the growing capabilities of full waveform and multi-spectral sensors, a single collection can yield a terabyte of data. Often the data is stored in one location, and is needed for analysis in another. Due to the size of the data received from the LiDAR, transmitting the entire data set is inefficient, and not required in every application. Accordingly, a system for identifying, extracting, compressing, and delivering a minimum amount of data in a compressed format is needed.